I want to wake up during lucids but I can't. I'd like some tips.

About a month or two ago I had my first false awakening that I actually spotted and turned into another lucid dream. Lately I've been having a lot of nightmares again (as in, I pretty much only have nightmares), even if they used to stop for a while after I had a lucid dream.

Problem is, I've been having weird dreams where I just can't wake up and things get progressively worst and worst and I just can't wake up and make it stop. The dream tends to start normally I guess, and I realize I am dreaming. Something bad happens, and I guess I am not completely aware, or maybe it's because I'm not really confident on my abilities yet, so I try to wake myself up. I wake up, and I'm in my bed and do a reality check, and I'm still dreaming, then I try doing something to wake me up again, and I do, except I do a reality check and surprise, still dreaming. This happens so many times (about five to ten times I'd say), and is really frustrating and scary, especially because I end up "waking up" in the same scene except a little bit more scary than last time. The dream degrades into something really worrying and scary because I want to wake up but I can't and the urgency of running from something bad makes it even worst because it feels like it is catching up to me I guess. It has been getting pretty ridiculous.

What makes it even worst is that I'm really not too focus on lucid dreaming at all, it just happens. I haven't even logged any of those dreams (even thought I maybe should've).

All my life I've always had pretty much only nightmares until I started lucid dreaming, but right now it's the first time I actually feel scared of going to sleep because of this. They are not very fun...

So yeah, I'm looking for some tips on how to avoid false awakenings, and hopefully I'll remember them when I find myself in this situation again. Thank you very much for the help in advance.

I recommend focusing on dream control rather than on preventing false awakenings. If you can change your dream to make it no longer scary, then not only have you stopped a nightmare, you also have a pleasant lucid dream to enjoy. If you manage to change a nightmare into a non-nightmare even once, that might be enough to stop them entirely; I've heard reports of recurring nightmares stopping after the person having them defeated them or made them not scary just once. For improving your dream control, I recommend Mzzkc's threads on the topic.

Thinking about waking up during a dream can cause you to dream about waking up. So, rather than trying to wake up during the dream, try going back to sleep and waiting patiently until you wake up. When you wake up, do a reality check. If you're still dreaming, just go back to sleep and wait a bit longer.

I get this sometimes to. It's frustrating feeling trapped when you for whatever reason run into a bad one that you just want to leave the situation and can't! I don't really know a sure way of ending the dream because like you said sometimes it can take 5 to 10 times. One thing I do if I run into trouble and just am not in the mood to deal with it is just close my eyes. So yeah that's basically what Dolphin's advice is too. Just close your eyes and keep doing your RC. I personally like plugging my nose and checking to see if I can still breathe because there is nothing visual about it. At least you know from experience that it WILL end so there is no reason to panic too much.

I had lucid nightmares for years. Extremely lucid, then I'd have a false awakening, and think I was awake. These FA dreams were very vivid, and I would lose lucidity. I finally learned dream control, and turned and face my enemies. I killed thousands of demons that dream.